Jordan Tirrell-Wysocki is an award-winning New Hampshire-based fiddler/singer who has been performing professionally for over two decades. He has toured nationally with bands in various genres, performed across Ireland, and released multiple recordings of Celtic music that can be heard on radio stations in Ireland and Scotland as well as around New England. He is also an Emmy®-nominated composer who has written soundtracks for audiobooks and television and appeared as a guest on over 100 albums. His lifelong passion for history helps bring to life the traditional music around which he built his career.
Lisa Greenleaf has been calling for many years throughout the USA and internationally for dances, weekends, and weeklong camps. Her specialties include traditional and contemporary contras, fun squares, challenging dances of all shapes and sizes, and callers’ training. Lisa likes to emphasize community and communication in her workshops, guiding participants to get the most out of their dancing or calling experience.
Sue Hunt, a native of Keene, NH, started dancing in Nelson in the early 1960s to Dudley Laufman and the Canterbury Country Dance Orchestra. When she returned to the State 33 years ago, she began playing piano for Dudley at public and private events. She worked with the late Lester Bradley playing for Eastern square dances. For several years she was the caller and piano player for the Wentworth, NH, old-time square dance.Today she continues to work regularly with Dudley and with Adam Boyce and with other callers at traditional New England public and private dances and events. She teams up with fiddler Jordan Tirrell-Wysocki whenever he’s available for dances, and the two of them delight in playing for caller Tod Whittemore.
Vince O’Donnell plays fiddle for English, Contra and Scottish dancing. He discovered country dance music in 1965, through Dudley Laufman and the Canterbury Country Orchestra, with whom he still plays. A former jazz guitar player, Vince loves ensemble interaction, harmonizing and improvising, along with the challenge of keeping all of that reasonably within traditional bounds and making it fun for the dancers. Every once in a while, he manages to compose a tune, and he supports outreach to new musicians, both adults and children. He serves on the NEFFA Board, and was a founding director of the Dance Musicians Development Fund of the Folk Arts Center of New England. Vince has spent years steeped in the New England traditional music scene He brings his love of improvisation to traditional tunes.
Tod Whittemore has been calling dances for forty years, having been lucky enough to begin his career at the time when famous callers Ralph Page and Duke Miller were still active in the Monadnock Region. Tod has called dances all over the world, and is known for his humor, energy, and infectious love of dancing.
Dance Caller, Musician, Poet, Storyteller, Recipient of 2009 National Heritage Fellowship Award (from the National Endowment for the Arts), Dudley Laufman has spent a lifetime calling dances & playing music throughout New England. Influenced by the well-known dance caller, Ralph Page, and the fiddling style of Dick Richardson, Dudley taught himself to call dances & play the fiddle, melodeon, harmonica & concertina by ear. Known as the Dancing Master of Canterbury, his dances, held throughout New England, were so popular in the 70s & 80s that they became known as “Dudley Dances!” He was the founder of the Canterbury Country Dance Orchestra that recorded the very first full-length LP of dance music back in 1972 & released a new recording in 2016. His influence and popularity created a wave of interest in old-time dancing that spread its way throughout the United States, as can be seen in the 2009 documentary “The Other Way Back” by David Millstone. For his role in preserving traditional New England music & dance, Dudley received a National Heritage Fellowship award in 2009, our country’s highest honor in the folk arts! He is still actively engaged in calling & playing for dances, averaging 80-90 gigs per year!
The Canterbury Country Dance Orchestra changed the sound of the music and inspired other country dance orchestras throughout New England as well as bringing in many excellent musicians